Barrentine, Shelby. “Reading Mini-Lessons: An Instructional Practice for Meaning Centered Reading Programs.” North Dakota University. Center for Teaching and Learning. V. 27 Sept 1995. 2-12. EBSCO. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.
In this article, Shelby Barrentine inform teachers how to make mini-lesson for reading fun for children in your classrooms. Mini-lessons should be a daily routine during the periods of reading. Barrentine writes, “It is important to understand that they content of mini-lessons is determined by the needs of learners. Teachers observe students’ developmental needs in reading, and these needs become the topic of mini-lessons” (3). Barrentine encourages teachers to discover ways to make mini-lessons useful for the students in their classrooms. There are many different kinds of mini-lessons that Barentine mention in this article to help improve the effectiveness of mini-lessons that involve reading. First, procedural mini-lessons teachers explain to the students steps for completing a task that is reading-related behavior. Literary mini-lessons, teachers show how understanding the meaning of the reading by the literary content is important. Strategies/skills mini-lesson, teachers use this mini-lesson to show the invisible meaning of the reading and make it visible for the readers. Attitude mini-lessons, teachers demonstrate to the students how reading can be a reward in the end. Barretine provides a lesson on each of these procedures, so that the teachers can have a grasp as to what each mini-lesson should look like. “Mini-lessons are aimed at helping students grow as readers. By nature, these lessons promote growth in readers because the lessons are relevant, informative, and brief” (11). We as teachers need to make subjects fun for the children, so that they are able to take the information and learn from it. Using mini-lessons that are able to help the needs of the learners will help you improve as a teacher and also improve your students learning. (Roxanne Ray)Bennett, Katie, and Laurel Hiebert. "Growing up in the Ocean: Complex Life Cycles of Common Marine Invertebrates."Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas46.4 (2010): 18-25.ERIC. EBSCO. Web. 28 Sept. 2010.
In this article, Bennet and Hiebert take a commonly associated word, in this case, metamorphosis, and expand students’ thinking on the word through inquiry based learning. They start off by having the teacher ask the students about what animals go through the metamorphosis process. Butterflies and frogs appear to be the most common answer among students. After the discussion is over, the teacher may begin their guided inquiry. A blank sheet is handed out and the students are asked to draw what they think the infant lifeforms of certain organisms, such as crabs, barnacles, sand dollars, and starfish look like. Most, if not all, the students should draw “minuscule replicas of the adults” (18). This is because most students, when asked about biological development, usually think infants are small versions of the adults and simply grow bigger and bigger. After all of the students have finished their drawings, slides of an infant star fish are shown, which looks drastically different from it’s adult form. The students are, then, guided through the definition of metamorphosis and asked what animals, that they can think of undergo this process. More questions are asked about how these animals move, and what they eat during these different developmental stages of their lives. The students are separated into groups to observe and record differences between adult crabs, the larva stage, and the mid-life stage as well as draw pictures about noticeable difference between each form the crab takes. The students inquire about the many differences each stage of metamorphosis the crab goes through, which is the purpose of this exercise. The purpose is to build on the students’ basic skills of inquiry through detailed and careful observations, asking questions they think of and trying to find answers to their questions, which will, hopefully lead to more questioning about life in the ocean or life science in general. (Colin Ramsey)Budd, John W. “Mind Maps as Classroom Exercises” Journal of Economic Education. Winter 2004. As we have learned, there can be many different styles of learning within one classroom, and a great exercise to incorporate all learners is a mind map. A mind map is a new take on the traditional outline; using a large piece of paper, markers, drawings, and post its. The main idea on a mind map is in the center of the sheet of paper and key ideas stem out from it. A mind map is a great way to get students talking to eachother, brainstorming and sharing ideas. “The nature of mind maps can facilitate richer and broader associations and, hence, better learning” (Buzan and Buzan 1993).
Most students who have made a mind map feel it’s a refreshing change from typical school work and they can be used in almost every subject. In this article, the teacher is working with older students, which is different than the scenario in Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies. This teacher is using the concept of mind maps in this economics class, showing how versatile this teaching strategy is and proving to us that it can be used with any age group. The best part about using mind maps is that it gets students engaged and is a great active learning technique. I strongly feel that teachers need to figure out what teaching strategies work best for their students and this has proven to work in countless classrooms. (Jennifer Evans) Bush, G. (2009). Toward a Culture of Inquiry in a World of Choices. Knowledge Quest, 38(1), 12-23. Retrieved from ERIC database.The main point that the author is trying to get across in this article is that any student on any level can benefit from “ can benefit from learning the language of critical thinking” (15). The author discusses how students are passing tests that have clear write and wrong answer but when it comes to critical thinking tests or, for example, the essay writing portion on the SAT test many students struggle with being able to comprehend what they are suppose to be doing. Students not having the skills to be able to critically think and write is a problem, states the article, “(clear write or wrong answer assignments) that's not the reality of college assignments and tests. And yet, our high school students' getting high scores on college entrance exams is often our highest goal within the realm of our K—12 educational system's testing environment” (14) In addition to addressing the lack of critical thinking skills within American students today the article also takes into account the fact that teachers are busy and don’t have much time or many extra resources to stray too far from the required curriculum so the article offers multiple different processes, ideas, and lesson plans to help to teach students about the critical thinking and writing process, while also making it fun, interactive and relatable to the students’ owns lives and experiences but also giving the teachers the ability to teach it. (Nicole Damon)Childre, Amy, Jennifer R. Sands, and Saundra Tanner Pope. "Backward Design: Targeting Depth of Understanding for All Learners." TEACHING Exceptional Children 41.5 (2009): 6-14. ERIC. EBSCO. Web. 15 Sept. 2010.
"How does a teacher get her students excited about learning? How can she help them to understand the content and how it relates to their lives?" (6) These are the foundational questions that guide the entire article. The teacher must be aware of their students’ abilities and schema before they can effectively design the curriculum with which to teach. This article outlines the teachers approach to using “Backward design” as a teaching method in the classroom. The authors stress that cultivating understanding is key to the pursuit of knowledge and to success in education. By understanding and utilizing schema, scaffolding and inquiry based lessons teachers find a way to make students interested and to help promote understanding of the content. The goal of the classroom teacher is to make the activities educational and enjoyable but also to connect the students to the material in a tangible or cognitive way. “Backwards design” is an approach to teaching which is resistant to textbook, lecture, and work sheet lead teaching style that is most common in classroom environments, and instead focuses on scaffolding learning and creating understanding. This is key to working not only with disabled students, but to working with any student. The teacher must understand the difference between student’s knowledge and student understanding, when creating a backward teaching design. Using the backward design, the teacher applies four steps to the creation of lessons, according to the article, these are: 1. Identify Learners; 2. Identify curricular priorities; 3. Design assessment framework; 4. Create learning activities (8). A teacher who implements these strategies, and who keeps the students prior knowledge, and abilities in mind will in general be more successful in keeping the children engaged and excited about what they are learning. (Karin Kaksonen)
Kisiel, James. "More Than Lions and Tigers and Bears: Creating Meaningful Field Trip Lessons." Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas 43.2 (2006): 7-10. Print. The article “More than Lions and Tigers and Bears – Creating Meaningful Field Trip Lessons” by James Kisiel is an insightful article that challenges teachers to make the most out of field trips by making it connect to the classroom. “The more connections teachers make, the greater the opportunity for supporting student understanding” (7). The main goal is for the teacher to incorporate the field trip directly into the curriculum, which should ultimately create a much more meaningful experience for students. Kisiel explains that one of the best ways to make this happen is by using the learning cycle model, which consists of the exploration phase, the concept introduction phase and the concept application phase. Each phase is vital in creating a successful field trip guide that will keep students engaged and learning. One of the most helpful parts of the article is the minilesson example. Each minilesson describes the learning goals of what students will learn from this field trip, states the national standards for the subject and grade level, discusses the on-site needs and certain materials. The article then explains the procedures for the minilesson, going into great detail and thoroughly explaining each procedure. The article gives two great minilessons that are sure to give all future teachers advice and guidelines on creating successful and fun field trips! (Tara Houghton)
Spence, Lucy K. spence@mailbox.sc.edu “Inquiry Based Writing Workshop” Teacher Librarian(2009) Vol. 37 Academic Search Premier University of South Carolina In “Inquiry Based Writing Workshop” a second grade teacher, Nancy, and a librarian create a lesson plan based on the exploration of inquiry in writing. Majority of the students that were presented with this curriculum were native to English language which made this challenge even harder for both Nancy and the librarian. The workshop started with the students picking an inquiry topic that they were interested in and themes that related to their cultural background, this gave the students the ability to implement creativity and individualism when choosing their subjects while, “making the curriculum organized around the social and personal questions of the learners.”(Nancy Pg 1) While reading about these techniques on how to get students to be involved with inquiry and interested in their topics, it reminded me of the book Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies. Although the two separate systems worked immensely on opening English language learner’s eyes to inquiry and the capability of questioning and discovering answers to even what the student’s perceive as an impossible outcome.
Some of the procedures that Nancy and the librarian use were basic skills to motivate the students to question information that they already had in their minds. One of the techniques that the professor’s use is a method called KWL which stands for What I know, What I want to know, and What I learned. The teachers also used tactics such as personal idea webs and four square organizers both of which helped students build onto their evaluations and create more ideas. I believe this article provided me with more knowledge towards creative ways to incorporate inquiry in writing. This workshop presents many new ideas and methods that would surely help any teacher but especially an English teacher.(Carissa Kellogg)
The article that I chose to read was called “Lesson Planning Strategy for Effective Mathematics Teaching.” It was written by Dr. Regina Panasuk, Dr. Walter Stone, and Jeffrey Todd. From their article, all the main points followed the “Four Stages of Lesson Planning (FSLP).” The first point in the FSLP would be objectives. Within the objectives category, the teacher would teach the lesson. This means the teacher needs to be “Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation” in the amount of time they are given to teach. With how class times are hard to get everything a crossed, the FSLP seems really difficult to complete, but if given the time, a teacher could get students involved with mathematics. From objectives, it would be homework. Homework is very important because it can find out if a student understands the material. If the homework gets handed in, a teacher can find out where students have difficulties and evaluate his material to make it easier for the students to understand the material. Homework does not need to be collected everyday but maybe after each chapter or each week. It really depends on what the teacher wants to do. Developmental activities are supposed to make sure the students understand and repeat the material that was given that day. This usually occurs on the next day or a couple of days before the test. “How a teacher introduces or defines a new idea can make a big difference to student’s subsequent success" (813). This is important because the first day of new material can make or break a student’s chances to succeed in math. The last step to the FSLP is mental mathematics. This step is to make sure that students can do certain math problems in their head and not using their fingers or paper. This is also the hardest because the teacher can never tell if a student is able to do math in their heads. From the FSLP, new math teachers have a plan set up for them, but they can change it to fit their teaching styles. (Gary Spiegel)
Simpson, James. "Learning electronic literacy skills in an online language learning community." Computer Assisted Language Learning 18.4 (2005): 327-345. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 14 Sept. 2010. The study of an online classroom for the use of learning literacy is examined thoroughly in this article. This article brings to light three important issues of learning literacy in a technological based format. The first deals with sociocultural responses and the interactions of a virtual community. The use of a physical tool (the online classroom) demonstrates outside support and the manipulation of technology and language by students. The second issue relates to a student’s ability to master technology by first knowing and mastering other essential skills such as writing and reading. The article poses those students who do not know how to read will not master their literacy online alone; rather, they need a classroom based support system in addition to the introduction of technology. The last issue addressed deals with the development of the use of academic discourse on a conversational level. Learning literacy is taken to the next level by bringing higher level language into conversations. This poses challenging, inventive, and helpful. Use of an online environment can be instrumental in a language learning community. (by Patty Hunsicker). Wolf, Maya, and Alix Laferriere. "Crawl into Inquiry-Based Learning."Science Activities46.3 (2009): 32-38.Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 14 Sept. 2010.
Maya Wolf and Alix Laferriere give an example on how easy it is to gets students engaged into inquiry-based learning. One of the easiest methods is to use life science, such as a classroom pet, and in this case, a hermit crab. The authors demonstrate through a lesson plan style of writing on how to bring inquiry into this experiment. Students are presented with a KWL (what they Know, what they Want to know, and what they’ve Learned) chart (33) and fill in the sections appropriately. The crabs are, then, brought out and the children will then begin brainstorming a classroom hypothesis based on their observations. Once a hypothesis is reached, in this case, “Do crabs prefer sandy or rocky beaches,” the classroom experiment begins. The students separate into groups and run a series of tests to arrive at a conclusion for their hypothesis. The results are discussed as a class as each group picks a member to report their results. While the conclusion they arrived at was not clear, based on their results being too varied, the objective of the experiment was to get the students engaged into the process of inquiry, asking questions they could test, and to come up with ways through experimentation to answer these questions. Furthermore, the students continued to question further how they could have arrived at a more concrete answer. Suggestions from giving the experiment more time to modifying the parameters under which the experiment was conducted show only the tip of the iceberg of the children’s learning process and how much they are capable of wondering about the world they live in. (Colin Ramsey)
Barrentine, Shelby. “Reading Mini-Lessons: An Instructional Practice for Meaning Centered Reading Programs.” North Dakota University. Center for Teaching and Learning. V. 27 Sept 1995. 2-12. EBSCO. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.
In this article, Shelby Barrentine inform teachers how to make mini-lesson for reading fun for children in your classrooms. Mini-lessons should be a daily routine during the periods of reading. Barrentine writes, “It is important to understand that they content of mini-lessons is determined by the needs of learners. Teachers observe students’ developmental needs in reading, and these needs become the topic of mini-lessons” (3). Barrentine encourages teachers to discover ways to make mini-lessons useful for the students in their classrooms. There are many different kinds of mini-lessons that Barentine mention in this article to help improve the effectiveness of mini-lessons that involve reading. First, procedural mini-lessons teachers explain to the students steps for completing a task that is reading-related behavior. Literary mini-lessons, teachers show how understanding the meaning of the reading by the literary content is important. Strategies/skills mini-lesson, teachers use this mini-lesson to show the invisible meaning of the reading and make it visible for the readers. Attitude mini-lessons, teachers demonstrate to the students how reading can be a reward in the end. Barretine provides a lesson on each of these procedures, so that the teachers can have a grasp as to what each mini-lesson should look like. “Mini-lessons are aimed at helping students grow as readers. By nature, these lessons promote growth in readers because the lessons are relevant, informative, and brief” (11). We as teachers need to make subjects fun for the children, so that they are able to take the information and learn from it. Using mini-lessons that are able to help the needs of the learners will help you improve as a teacher and also improve your students learning. (Roxanne Ray) Bennett, Katie, and Laurel Hiebert. "Growing up in the Ocean: Complex Life Cycles of Common Marine Invertebrates." Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas 46.4 (2010): 18-25. ERIC. EBSCO. Web. 28 Sept. 2010.
In this article, Bennet and Hiebert take a commonly associated word, in this case, metamorphosis, and expand students’ thinking on the word through inquiry based learning. They start off by having the teacher ask the students about what animals go through the metamorphosis process. Butterflies and frogs appear to be the most common answer among students. After the discussion is over, the teacher may begin their guided inquiry. A blank sheet is handed out and the students are asked to draw what they think the infant lifeforms of certain organisms, such as crabs, barnacles, sand dollars, and starfish look like. Most, if not all, the students should draw “minuscule replicas of the adults” (18). This is because most students, when asked about biological development, usually think infants are small versions of the adults and simply grow bigger and bigger. After all of the students have finished their drawings, slides of an infant star fish are shown, which looks drastically different from it’s adult form. The students are, then, guided through the definition of metamorphosis and asked what animals, that they can think of undergo this process. More questions are asked about how these animals move, and what they eat during these different developmental stages of their lives. The students are separated into groups to observe and record differences between adult crabs, the larva stage, and the mid-life stage as well as draw pictures about noticeable difference between each form the crab takes. The students inquire about the many differences each stage of metamorphosis the crab goes through, which is the purpose of this exercise. The purpose is to build on the students’ basic skills of inquiry through detailed and careful observations, asking questions they think of and trying to find answers to their questions, which will, hopefully lead to more questioning about life in the ocean or life science in general. (Colin Ramsey) Budd, John W. “Mind Maps as Classroom Exercises” Journal of Economic Education. Winter 2004. As we have learned, there can be many different styles of learning within one classroom, and a great exercise to incorporate all learners is a mind map. A mind map is a new take on the traditional outline; using a large piece of paper, markers, drawings, and post its. The main idea on a mind map is in the center of the sheet of paper and key ideas stem out from it. A mind map is a great way to get students talking to eachother, brainstorming and sharing ideas. “The nature of mind maps can facilitate richer and broader associations and, hence, better learning” (Buzan and Buzan 1993).
Most students who have made a mind map feel it’s a refreshing change from typical school work and they can be used in almost every subject. In this article, the teacher is working with older students, which is different than the scenario in Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies. This teacher is using the concept of mind maps in this economics class, showing how versatile this teaching strategy is and proving to us that it can be used with any age group. The best part about using mind maps is that it gets students engaged and is a great active learning technique. I strongly feel that teachers need to figure out what teaching strategies work best for their students and this has proven to work in countless classrooms. (Jennifer Evans) Bush, G. (2009). Toward a Culture of Inquiry in a World of Choices. Knowledge Quest, 38(1), 12-23. Retrieved from ERIC database.The main point that the author is trying to get across in this article is that any student on any level can benefit from “ can benefit from learning the language of critical thinking” (15). The author discusses how students are passing tests that have clear write and wrong answer but when it comes to critical thinking tests or, for example, the essay writing portion on the SAT test many students struggle with being able to comprehend what they are suppose to be doing. Students not having the skills to be able to critically think and write is a problem, states the article, “(clear write or wrong answer assignments) that's not the reality of college assignments and tests. And yet, our high school students' getting high scores on college entrance exams is often our highest goal within the realm of our K—12 educational system's testing environment” (14) In addition to addressing the lack of critical thinking skills within American students today the article also takes into account the fact that teachers are busy and don’t have much time or many extra resources to stray too far from the required curriculum so the article offers multiple different processes, ideas, and lesson plans to help to teach students about the critical thinking and writing process, while also making it fun, interactive and relatable to the students’ owns lives and experiences but also giving the teachers the ability to teach it. (Nicole Damon) Childre, Amy, Jennifer R. Sands, and Saundra Tanner Pope. "Backward Design: Targeting Depth of Understanding for All Learners." TEACHING Exceptional Children 41.5 (2009): 6-14. ERIC. EBSCO. Web. 15 Sept. 2010.
"How does a teacher get her students excited about learning? How can she help them to understand the content and how it relates to their lives?" (6) These are the foundational questions that guide the entire article. The teacher must be aware of their students’ abilities and schema before they can effectively design the curriculum with which to teach. This article outlines the teachers approach to using “Backward design” as a teaching method in the classroom. The authors stress that cultivating understanding is key to the pursuit of knowledge and to success in education. By understanding and utilizing schema, scaffolding and inquiry based lessons teachers find a way to make students interested and to help promote understanding of the content. The goal of the classroom teacher is to make the activities educational and enjoyable but also to connect the students to the material in a tangible or cognitive way. “Backwards design” is an approach to teaching which is resistant to textbook, lecture, and work sheet lead teaching style that is most common in classroom environments, and instead focuses on scaffolding learning and creating understanding. This is key to working not only with disabled students, but to working with any student. The teacher must understand the difference between student’s knowledge and student understanding, when creating a backward teaching design. Using the backward design, the teacher applies four steps to the creation of lessons, according to the article, these are: 1. Identify Learners; 2. Identify curricular priorities; 3. Design assessment framework; 4. Create learning activities (8). A teacher who implements these strategies, and who keeps the students prior knowledge, and abilities in mind will in general be more successful in keeping the children engaged and excited about what they are learning. (Karin Kaksonen)
Kisiel, James. "More Than Lions and Tigers and Bears: Creating Meaningful Field Trip Lessons." Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas 43.2 (2006): 7-10. Print.
The article “More than Lions and Tigers and Bears – Creating Meaningful Field Trip Lessons” by James Kisiel is an insightful article that challenges teachers to make the most out of field trips by making it connect to the classroom. “The more connections teachers make, the greater the opportunity for supporting student understanding” (7). The main goal is for the teacher to incorporate the field trip directly into the curriculum, which should ultimately create a much more meaningful experience for students. Kisiel explains that one of the best ways to make this happen is by using the learning cycle model, which consists of the exploration phase, the concept introduction phase and the concept application phase. Each phase is vital in creating a successful field trip guide that will keep students engaged and learning. One of the most helpful parts of the article is the minilesson example. Each minilesson describes the learning goals of what students will learn from this field trip, states the national standards for the subject and grade level, discusses the on-site needs and certain materials. The article then explains the procedures for the minilesson, going into great detail and thoroughly explaining each procedure. The article gives two great minilessons that are sure to give all future teachers advice and guidelines on creating successful and fun field trips! (Tara Houghton)
Spence, Lucy K. spence@mailbox.sc.edu “Inquiry Based Writing Workshop” Teacher Librarian(2009) Vol. 37 Academic Search Premier University of South Carolina
In “Inquiry Based Writing Workshop” a second grade teacher, Nancy, and a librarian create a lesson plan based on the exploration of inquiry in writing. Majority of the students that were presented with this curriculum were native to English language which made this challenge even harder for both Nancy and the librarian. The workshop started with the students picking an inquiry topic that they were interested in and themes that related to their cultural background, this gave the students the ability to implement creativity and individualism when choosing their subjects while, “making the curriculum organized around the social and personal questions of the learners.”(Nancy Pg 1) While reading about these techniques on how to get students to be involved with inquiry and interested in their topics, it reminded me of the book Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies. Although the two separate systems worked immensely on opening English language learner’s eyes to inquiry and the capability of questioning and discovering answers to even what the student’s perceive as an impossible outcome.
Some of the procedures that Nancy and the librarian use were basic skills to motivate the students to question information that they already had in their minds. One of the techniques that the professor’s use is a method called KWL which stands for What I know, What I want to know, and What I learned. The teachers also used tactics such as personal idea webs and four square organizers both of which helped students build onto their evaluations and create more ideas. I believe this article provided me with more knowledge towards creative ways to incorporate inquiry in writing. This workshop presents many new ideas and methods that would surely help any teacher but especially an English teacher.(Carissa Kellogg)
Panasuk, Regina, Walter Stone, Jeffrey Todd. “Lesson Planning Strategy for Effective Mathematics Teaching.” Education; Vol. 122 Issue 4 (2002): 808-827. EBSCO. Web. 21 Sept. 2010
The article that I chose to read was called “Lesson Planning Strategy for Effective Mathematics Teaching.” It was written by Dr. Regina Panasuk, Dr. Walter Stone, and Jeffrey Todd. From their article, all the main points followed the “Four Stages of Lesson Planning (FSLP).” The first point in the FSLP would be objectives. Within the objectives category, the teacher would teach the lesson. This means the teacher needs to be “Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation” in the amount of time they are given to teach. With how class times are hard to get everything a crossed, the FSLP seems really difficult to complete, but if given the time, a teacher could get students involved with mathematics. From objectives, it would be homework. Homework is very important because it can find out if a student understands the material. If the homework gets handed in, a teacher can find out where students have difficulties and evaluate his material to make it easier for the students to understand the material. Homework does not need to be collected everyday but maybe after each chapter or each week. It really depends on what the teacher wants to do. Developmental activities are supposed to make sure the students understand and repeat the material that was given that day. This usually occurs on the next day or a couple of days before the test. “How a teacher introduces or defines a new idea can make a big difference to student’s subsequent success" (813). This is important because the first day of new material can make or break a student’s chances to succeed in math. The last step to the FSLP is mental mathematics. This step is to make sure that students can do certain math problems in their head and not using their fingers or paper. This is also the hardest because the teacher can never tell if a student is able to do math in their heads. From the FSLP, new math teachers have a plan set up for them, but they can change it to fit their teaching styles. (Gary Spiegel)
Simpson, James. "Learning electronic literacy skills in an online language learning community." Computer Assisted Language Learning 18.4 (2005): 327-345. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 14 Sept. 2010.
The study of an online classroom for the use of learning literacy is examined thoroughly in this article. This article brings to light three important issues of learning literacy in a technological based format. The first deals with sociocultural responses and the interactions of a virtual community. The use of a physical tool (the online classroom) demonstrates outside support and the manipulation of technology and language by students. The second issue relates to a student’s ability to master technology by first knowing and mastering other essential skills such as writing and reading. The article poses those students who do not know how to read will not master their literacy online alone; rather, they need a classroom based support system in addition to the introduction of technology. The last issue addressed deals with the development of the use of academic discourse on a conversational level. Learning literacy is taken to the next level by bringing higher level language into conversations. This poses challenging, inventive, and helpful. Use of an online environment can be instrumental in a language learning community. (by Patty Hunsicker).
Wolf, Maya, and Alix Laferriere. "Crawl into Inquiry-Based Learning." Science Activities 46.3 (2009): 32-38. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 14 Sept. 2010.
Maya Wolf and Alix Laferriere give an example on how easy it is to gets students engaged into inquiry-based learning. One of the easiest methods is to use life science, such as a classroom pet, and in this case, a hermit crab. The authors demonstrate through a lesson plan style of writing on how to bring inquiry into this experiment. Students are presented with a KWL (what they Know, what they Want to know, and what they’ve Learned) chart (33) and fill in the sections appropriately. The crabs are, then, brought out and the children will then begin brainstorming a classroom hypothesis based on their observations. Once a hypothesis is reached, in this case, “Do crabs prefer sandy or rocky beaches,” the classroom experiment begins. The students separate into groups and run a series of tests to arrive at a conclusion for their hypothesis. The results are discussed as a class as each group picks a member to report their results. While the conclusion they arrived at was not clear, based on their results being too varied, the objective of the experiment was to get the students engaged into the process of inquiry, asking questions they could test, and to come up with ways through experimentation to answer these questions. Furthermore, the students continued to question further how they could have arrived at a more concrete answer. Suggestions from giving the experiment more time to modifying the parameters under which the experiment was conducted show only the tip of the iceberg of the children’s learning process and how much they are capable of wondering about the world they live in. (Colin Ramsey)